The Beginning | Damon Salvatore #1

Chapter 1

"I think Bonnie should try to go out with Tyler," Elena said as her and the Salvatore brothers walked to the door of the boarding house.

"I think that would be an awful match," Damon disagreed, shaking his head. "Tyler is a big, bad wolf—literally—and Bonnie is a dainty, witchy red riding hood."

Stefan laughed as he turned the key in the lock, "He's kind of right."

Elena shook her head at them and went into the house. Damon, however, felt the hairs on his neck stand on end as he smelled the air, "Guys."

"Yeah?" Stefan responded, turning around.

"I smell blood," Damon said, feeling a little panicked. He hadn't smelled fresh blood like that in months; only squirrels and occasional blood bags for him.

Stefan stepped back out in front of the door and smelled the crisp air and caught the scent of human blood coming from the woods. Elena came out, looking confused before she was alone. Stefan and Damon had both disappeared into the trees to find whoever was bleeding.

Damon came to a quick halt at the base of a larger tree to see a body laying next to a small path. Based on the trail of blood coming from the other direction, this person had collapsed after running away from something.

Stefan stopped beside him as Damon stepped closer to the body.

"What are you doing, Damon?" Stefan questioned as he stood back, avoiding the blood.

Damon turned and stared at his brother, "What? You think that I'm looking for food because I ran all the way out here? You think I have no control?"

"You're a vampire, Damon; what makes you think I don't think that, even about myself?" Stefan murmured the last bit as Elena stopped beside him.

"Why do I smell blood?" She asked, making Damon roll his eyes as he turned back around to find the body belonged to a woman. Her hair scattered around her head and tangled in her hand.

"It's a girl," Damon said, crouching down beside her. He studied her shoulders: a faint rise and fall was evident but barely. "She's alive."

"Well, we can't just leave her here," Elena said. Damon turned his head back around to glare at them. She must have been truly idiotic, he thought, of course they weren't going to leave her there. Without a word, he looked back at the girl and moved her hair from her face.

"She looks like you, Elena," he said, studying her closely.

Elena's heart beat harder and faster with each second before she blurted: "We have to take her with us."

Stefan soothed his girlfriend as Damon rolled his eyes, scooping the girl into his arms and carrying her to the boarding house.

Once Damon was able to lay the girl down on one of the couches, he looked for the source of the blood, which he found on her neck. Two punctures in her neck sent chills down his spine.

"She's been bitten by another vampire unless one of you two crazies had a red rager in the past few hours," Damon said, annoyed too much by his brother and Elena to remember that they've been with him all day. There's no way it could have been them.

"There must be another vampire in town, somehow," Stefan said, shoving his hands into his pockets as he leaned on one of the posts in the study where they were.

Damon quickly bit his wrist and stuck it to the girls mouth before Stefan could stop him. Stefan nearly yelled, "Damon! What do you think you're doing?"

"Saving her. You got a better idea of finding out who did this?" He mocked, letting the blood rush into the girl's mouth. There was still no movement, so Damon clamped her jaw shut so she would be forced to swallow or choke. The girl sat straight up on the couch, coughing. No blood came out, thankfully, which meant she'd swallowed it.

"There, there," Damon soothed sarcastically, staring at Stefan. Elena came in holding a rag for the blood on the girl's neck before she started panicking again, "What happened?"

"Nothing, Elena. She's fine," Damon said. The girl looked up, with blood all over her mouth, and sneered at Damon. Her anger was pure and unabashed.

"What did you do to me?" She spat, standing to her feet in Damon's face. He stumbled a little, unsure of what was happening.

"You made a big mistake healing me, you filthy bloodsucker," she snarled before pulling a knife from her boot and raising it to Damon's face. With the sound of wind, Stefan snatched the knife from her hand and handed it to Elena, who gripped it in her hand, ready to use it.

"Look, we aren't going to hurt you as long as you don't try to hurt us, capeesh?" Damon said with his hands raised in surrender. "We found you nearly dried up in the woods; you should be thanking me for reviving you, princess."

She was silent as she shook her head, holding it and sitting down on the couch. Her thoughts were clouded with the vampire who attacked her and the ones she knew were looking for her. She reached to her jacket pocket and found her phone; before she could dial any numbers, Damon had taken it from her.

"Absolutely not. Before you're allowed to set foot back into civilization, you need to tell us who did this to you on our turf," he eyed her suspiciously, already blaming her for more dead bodies as she stared at him with seething anger.

"What makes you think I want to tell any of you anything? Yeah, you pulled me out of the woods. So what? In about half and hour, I probably would've been awake and away from here," she said, overly confident in her willpower.

"In about half an hour, you would have been dead," Damon said, moving closer, forcing her to sit back on the couch.

"Tell us who did this to you," Stefan calmly demanded as he sat across from the girl. Elena drifted to stand behind him. Damon stood closer to the girl, expecting her to pounce again at any minute.

The girl sat in silent rage, staring into Damon's eyes. Her heartbeat was hard and sure.

"Maybe we should start smaller, Stefan," Damon smirked, sitting beside him. He crossed his legs and intertwined his fingers, studying the girl. "What's your name?"

"Like I'm telling you," she said sarcastically.

"Listen, sassy pants, you're not leaving until you tell us who you are and how you know about vampires," Damon said.

It seemed she didn't have a choice. She had to either talk or sit in the room with three vampires forever, and she knew people were looking for her already. Two, at least.

She took in a breath, never losing eye contact with Damon. His eyes pierced hers with intensity; nothing she could say or do could change the way he thought about her already: sneaky, untrustworthy.

"Harper," she said, lying actually. She wasn't letting them in under any circumstances.

"Liar," Elena blurted.

"Why would I lie about my name?" Harper asked. Her eyes finally moved from Damon's to Elena's in a second. All three vampires looked at her with doubt but didn't say anything.

"Fine," she said. "My name is Alexandra Wilson."